I'm watching CNN's coverage -- I went to see what MSNBC's was like and they have a taped Ed Show recapping the "Working Class Heroes of 2012" ... not really impressive coverage of actual breaking news =P

I've got the HuffPo Live blog open on my desktop ...

I'd been watching the Twilight Zone Marathon off and on and thought, when I just flipped to CNN and saw Grover Norquist trying to convince Wolf Blitzer that the House vote is a Repugnican victory, that I was still watching TZ!

It is - "The Monsters are Due on Maple Street"

Here's the first paragraph of a NY Times article:

Just a few years ago, the tax deal pushed through the Senate in the early hours on Tuesday would have been a Republican fiscal fantasy, a sweeping bill that locks in virtually all of the Bush-era tax cuts, exempts almost all estates from taxation, and enshrines the former president’s credo that dividends and capital gains should be taxed gently.

Exactly. The republicans have won the war. We're skirmishing at the borders.

On the strategic error of the deal, here is an article from The New Republic. I agree completely with this, by the way. Obama has in effect given the republicans a victory.

But if true, only a short term victory. One that will probably be reversed over the next two Congressional election cycles.

An interesting article — much of which I agree with or at least cede credibility to — but, IMHO, based on the present left/right balance and the still formidable but loosening Tea Party grip. I saw no mention of 2014 (except in one reader's comment) or 2016. And I don't think you can lay down a broad hypothesis without taking those two benchmarks into consideration.

If only we had a crystal ball, eh? Better still, if only I had Krystal Ball! Hubba hubba!

Which is better: Suffering potentially damaging impacts to the economy and to millions of citizens in the name of scoring a political "victory," or working with what you have in order to prevent such impacts? I submit it's the job of the President to follow the latter course ...

Part of the problem with having to deal with a legislative contingent that completely jettisons any concept of governmental responsibility is that the other side often has to fall on their swords to responsibly do their jobs and protect citizens from the fallout of such intransigence.

In some circles, this is called "caving." But the alternative would be to essentially join hands with that irresponsible faction and let things start falling apart, just so you could blame them for the fallout ... And I think we'd all agree that any President who intentionally allowed markets to crash, the economy to tank, and millions of citizens to suffer -- even for "just a few weeks" -- just so his political opponents would get the blame, would be grossly (if not criminally) negligent.

So I think that all the rhetoric about "caving" and "giving the Republicans a victory" is just a way of trying to deal with the fact that when dealing with children, adults often have to act like adults and don't have the luxury of behaving like stubborn little brats too ...

The victory I mean is not solely the concessions that were part of this deal. I'll stipulate that it's ok in effect to do away with the "death tax," as they call it, and to concede that people who make 300 or 400 thousand per year are struggling middle-class folks, and to accept that instead of applying payroll taxes to all incomes, it's fine to raise them back to the pre-holiday rate for incomes under the liminal figure. So stipulated (not that I agree with any of it, but just to set aside those points). And of course I accept without objection of any kind that not coming to an agreement would have screwed those who are already screwed beyond measure. So yes, coming to an agreement was a practical necessity for "adults" who "don't have the luxury of behaving like stubborn little brats."

What's left, however, is the idea that what ails the economy is the deficit, and that the deficit is a result of government's intoxication with spending for the sake of spending, and that therefore the cure for what ails the economy is cutting government spending. Cut government spending now, and the result will be disastrous for those same people who are already screwed beyond measure.

We'll see what happens as March impends. It does not look pretty, however.

From Ezra Klein:
(Source: Reuters)

— Tax rates will permanently rise to Clinton-era levels for families with income above $450,000 and individuals above $400,000. All income below the threshold will permanently be taxed at Bush-era rates.

— The tax on capital gains and dividends will be permanently set at 20 percent for those with income above the $450,000/$400,000 threshold. It will remain at 15 percent for everyone else. (Clinton-era rates were 20 percent for capital gains and taxed dividends as ordinary income, with a top rate of 39.6 percent.)

— The estate tax will be set at 40 percent with a $5 million exemption. That threshold will be indexed to inflation, as a concession to Republicans and some Democrats in rural areas like Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mt.).

— The sequester will be delayed for two months. Half of the delay will be offset by discretionary cuts, split between defense and non-defense. The other half will be offset by revenue raised by the voluntary transfer of traditional IRAs to Roth IRAs, which would tax retirement savings when they’re moved over.

— The pay freeze on members of Congress, which Obama had lifted earlier this year, will be re-imposed.

— The 2009 expansion of tax breaks for low-income Americans: the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, and the American Opportunity Tax Credit will be extended for five years.

— The Alternative Minimum Tax will be permanently patched to avoid raising taxes on the middle-class.

— The deal will not address the debt-ceiling, and the payroll tax holiday will be allowed to expire.

— Two limits on tax exemptions and deductions for higher-income Americans will be reimposed: Personal Exemption Phaseout (PEP) and the itemized deduction limitation (Pease) kicks in at will be set at $250,000 for singles and $300,000 for families.

—The full package of temporary business tax breaks — benefiting everything from R&D and wind energy to race-car track owners — will be extended for another year.

— Scheduled cuts to doctors under Medicare would be avoided for a year through spending cuts that haven’t been specified.

— Federal unemployment insurance will be extended for another year, benefiting those unemployed for longer than 26 weeks. This $30 billion provision won’t be offset.

— A nine-month farm bill fix will be attached to the deal, Sen. Debbie Stabenow told reporters, averting the newly dubbed milk cliff.

*Correction: An earlier version of this post said that the PEP threshold would reinstated at $250,000 and Pease would be at $300,000. For both it’s $250,000 for singles and $300,000 for families. The estate tax also applies to all filers, not just those above the $450,000/$400,000 threshold.